Swiss companies plan vocational education centre in Pune

NEW DELHI: To help impart employability skills to youth, a group of Swiss companies plans to set up a centre in Pune that will provide vocational education programmes in various areas of manufacturing sector.

The Centre of Excellence for Manufacturing would be set up by the Swiss entities in alliance with Pune-based Malhotra Weikfield Foundation.

Initially, five Swiss entities having operations in Pune — Burckhardt Compression, Syngenta Foundation, Sulzer India, Rieter Foundation and Hilti — would be coming together to set up the centre.

Expected to be operational in 2016-17, the centre would offer four-year courses in polymechanics, mechatronics, welding and design, according to Narasimha Rao, Managing Director of Burckhardt Compression (India) Private Ltd. This firm is into machinery manufacturing segment.

Besides, this centre would host a Swiss Centre of Excellence for Agriculture to train agri-entrepreneurs and agri-technicians.

The centre for manufacturing would have an intake of 24 students annually. Students who have passed tenth standard with at least 35 per cent marks in mathematics would be eligible to apply.

During the last two years of the four-year programme, students would be working at Swiss companies for a few days, Rao said in a statement.

More than 20 Swiss companies have manufacturing facilities in the Pune region.